Main menu

You are here

Adrian's Law

Help us to ensure every 16–18 year-old is educated about blood, organ and bone marrow and stem cell donation

Young, healthy people make the best bone marrow and stem cell donors. So it’s vital they know how crucial it is to join our register.

We support Adrian’s Law, which calls for all schools and colleges to educate 16–18 year-olds about the urgent need for blood, organ and bone marrow donors.

Passing Adrian’s Law could lead to thousands more young people joining our register, and thousands more people with blood cancer having the chance to live.

When young people learn about the difference they can make by becoming a potential donor – and how easy the process is – we believe many more will want to join our register.

Adrian Sudbury

Adrian’s Law is named after Adrian Sudbury, an inspirational journalist diagnosed with leukaemia aged just 25.

Adrian had blood transfusions and a bone marrow transplant as part of his treatment. When researching his situation, he found that there wasn’t much information for young people about the importance of donating blood, bone marrow and organs.

He believed that many more people like him could be helped if more young people knew the difference they could make by becoming donors. So he, alongside his family and friends, started campaigning for better education.

The result was the Register and Be a Lifesaver (R&Be) programme. Set up by Anthony Nolan and NHS Blood and Transplant in 2008, it organises volunteers to do presentations in schools about blood, organ and bone marrow donation.

Adrian sadly passed away that same year. But with R&Be, his legacy lives on.

How you can help

Adrian’s Law was raised in Parliament last year as a Private Members Bill. The Bill is no longer part of Parliamentary activity, which is common for this type of Bill.

However we still need MPs’ support for the R&Be programme. We held a Parliamentary event in the House of Commons on 29 April 2014, where we told MPs about R&Be and asked them to help us to bring the programme to their constituencies.